I found Simone de Beauvoir in graduate school. I know her best for writing The Second Sex. This book changed my life and my feminist identity. I found ways to cite her in almost every paper I wrote for a year after reading it. To give you some of her flavor, she writes, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”

Immediately, this book asked me to question what feels “normal.” Many of the things we think are "natural" about womanhood are actually cultural expectations that have been repeated until they feel inevitable. This idea was revolutionary for a woman in her early 20s. 

When I look again at The Second Sex, I see a broader and more interesting idea that is the foundation of everything that I write: The most powerful questions are often about the things we've stopped seeing because they've become ordinary. 

Maybe that's what the best books do. They don't just change your mind. They change what your eyes know how to notice.